


in action how like an angel

by flybbfly



Series: philia verse [2]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Deleted Scene, Hair-pulling, M/M, Shakespeare References, actually more like a coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-26
Updated: 2015-10-26
Packaged: 2018-04-28 06:28:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5081182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flybbfly/pseuds/flybbfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3766021">philia</a> deleted scene, covers most of Courfeyrac & Jehan's relationship</p>
            </blockquote>





	in action how like an angel

It's quiet in the aftermath of the rally, and Jehan thinks it feels really like a war.

He's never been in a war himself, but he's heard Feuilly talk about it: how quiet it could be until it wasn't. How you wanted to get away until you didn't. How it never left you, that bone-deep feeling that this was your life now, falling asleep with rolling anxiety in your stomach and waking up to long dreary days broken up only by the occasional battle for your life. 

“And it's so weird when they're people who look like you, you know?” Feuilly has said, sitting next to Jehan with a bowl in his hand. “It feels like shooting at your own family. I mean, that's not all we did—we built hospitals, you know, and schools—but when you look more like them than like the guys on your own side, it fucks with you.”

Jehan can understand that, he thinks now. The people on the other side certainly don't look like him, but it feels like a different kind of war. He thinks about the wars in his epics, Greeks versus Greeks, curling hair and sharp noses and people at home who they loved. He thinks about Achilles and Patroclus an absurd amount, about how if they'd fought side by side they might've ended differently—though he's torn on whether it would've happened sooner or later. Would it make them stronger, to have a reason to stay alive by their side? Or would it have made them weaker, to spend their time defending one another instead of defending themselves?

Achilles, Jehan thinks, all flash and that desire for glory even after he'd already proved himself, Achilles would die showing off to Patroclus. But Patroclus maybe might've died in some sweeter way, perhaps defending Achilles, or in a twist of Shakespearean tragedy struck by Achilles' own sword.

The Homeric epics don't really go for Shakespearean tragedy, though, which makes sense considering Shakespeare was writing about two thousand years after Homer transcribed the _Iliad_. His twists and turns might've made their way into the Greek tragedies—children killing their own parents by accident feels suspiciously Shakespearean and no one can say he wasn't influenced by Sophocles at least and certainly Aristophanes, but that's really more Courfeyrac's division than Jehan's—but Homer didn't write Greek tragedies. He wrote Greek war stories. 

“What are you thinking about?” Courfeyrac asks, handing Jehan a cookie and taking the joint Jehan offers him in return.

The sight of him brings Jehan a rush of warmth that the weed doesn't. Courfeyrac has always been a chaotic force, fidgety and loud, and Jehan is iffy on the science but he's pretty sure that chaos leads to warmth. That, at least, explains what he's feeling right now.

“I'm thinking about how we're all here eating cookies while Enjolras and Grantaire are in the hospital and Eponine is in jail,” he says. 

“We're on it,” Courfeyrac says, nodding at Combeferre and Bahorel, who are sitting in a corner with phones pressed to their ears and a laptop in front of them. “Enjolras is awake and waiting in the ER. Grantaire is out cold and already getting treatment. Eponine is—” Courfeyrac hesitates. “Well, we don't know exactly. Combeferre says we're already doing everything we can to get her out, but they haven't set bail yet so no matter how much money I withdraw from my trust she's stuck in there for the night.”

“So an all-nighter awaits us all,” Jehan says.

“Well, me and Combeferre at least.” 

Courfeyrac exhales a lungful of smoke in a series of small puffs, which he watches dissipate in a rare moment of stillness. Jehan loves when he catches Courfeyrac in moments like these, and despite the stress of the night the combination of Courfeyrac's lips—pursed, full, shockingly pink—and his freckles draw Jehan in.

“Jehan, you are as constant as the Northern Star,” Courfeyrac says. “You're watching me.” 

He passes the joint to Jehan, who inhales without answering. They're getting to the end of it now, and the smoke scorches the inside of Jehan's throat. He thinks of Moses and the burning bush, and though he knows it doesn't make sense he wonders what would've happened if the bush had been an act of violence against the body instead of an impossible fire. It's not like the Old Testament God to hold back when He can destroy instead.

“I'm worried about Grantaire,” Jehan says. “I saw him fall. He landed really badly.”

“He's an athlete,” Courfeyrac says, and it should feel dismissive but it doesn't. Courfeyrac has this prophetic way of talking, like he's completely sure of every word that comes out of his mouth even when he's just saying things to be comforting. It's convincing even if he is drumming his fingers anxiously against his thighs. “He'll be fine.”

He throws an arm around Jehan's shoulders, and if either of them were anyone else it might have been casual.

*

The thing about Courfeyrac and Jehan is that nothing between them has ever been casual.

They met during Jehan's freshman year when he wandered into an ABC meeting almost by accident and stayed because, hey, he was queer and a person of color and in desperate need of friends. He'd missed out on the milling about people did the first week of freshman year, and he lived in one of the dorms with single rooms so he didn't even have a roommate to talk to. He knew these things weren't instant anyway—friendship, after all, was a slow-ripening fruit, and Jehan was comfortable with his books and his ancient Greek and Latin studies, but that didn't mean he wanted to sit at the library alone every day. It was bad enough eating in the dining hall alone most weekdays—he didn't want that to be his life _all_ the time.

He thought of himself as almost Brontëan in that sense, “the more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained,” the more he'd respect himself. But he knew, too, that it wasn't a fully applicable philosophy—a friend, too, was as Aristotle said two souls dwelling in one body, and Jehan's body felt very, very empty those first few weeks.

The ABC took him in immediately, Feuilly with his quiet charm and intimate knowledge of war stories real and fiction, Combeferre with his easy smile and instant liking for Jehan, Musichetta with her drinks even though he was technically underage, Enjolras with his voice and his message, but mostly Courfeyrac with those soft full lips and that accent and that constant movement and his immediate understanding of everyone.

Courfeyrac hit on Jehan when they first met, but he hit on everyone, immediately and indiscriminately. He flirted with professors and TAs, with baristas and bartenders, with people on the subway— _Ma'am, I'm so sorry but you have a lovely smile and I've just missed my stop_ —and people in stores. He seemed to pay special attention to Jehan, though: gazing at him during ABC meetings, draping himself around Jehan at the Musain afterward, buying him drinks, inviting him out to meals. But Jehan thought it odd that Courfeyrac almost never tried anything with him—no sneaking kisses, no drunken declarations, no hinting at anything other than almost-bland flirting and something akin to some 1950s form of dating.

Jehan could count on one hand the amount of times anything anywhere near impropriety had happened between them: they'd kissed once at a party shortly after they met—Jehan's hands gripping the front of Courfeyrac's shirt and Courfeyrac's hands twisted in his hair—and more might've happened had Enjolras not discovered them standing just out the door pressed against one wall. He'd still worn his red coat everywhere even when it was hot and called everyone “citizen” then. Jehan remembered it well, Enjolras's blush, the pink clashing horribly with his coat. “Citizens,” he'd said. “I didn't mean to interrupt—” And Courfeyrac had pressed his forehead to Jehan's, expelled a laugh that was really more like a huff of breath, and said, “Our indiscretion never serves us well,” and Jehan hadn't understood why and they hadn't spoken of it.

Once, when they were drunk and alone in Combeferre and Jehan's apartment—Combeferre himself was long gone, off for yet another all-nighter sans Adderall because that was how Combeferre did things—and Courfeyrac braided Jehan's hair and then, as if possessed by some ganymedian spirit, whirled Jehan around and grasped the plait from behind and tugged.

Courfeyrac stared at the exposed expanse of Jehan's neck, and Jehan stared up at the inscrutable expression on Courfeyrac's face. The sensation at the back of his head, pain mixed with something stronger, desire or yearning, was nothing compared to the look of Courfeyrac's eyes on Jehan's throat. Courfeyrac's eyes rose to Jehan's, then, his entire body a line of tension, none of his usual laughter present in his face.

“Do it,” Jehan said, and for a long minute it seemed Courfeyrac wasn't going to do anything.

And then Courfeyrac kissed him, soft full lips against the crook of Jehan's neck, dry at first and then just enough wetness that Jehan half-moaned. Courfeyrac's hand pressed into the small of Jehan's back, pulling them closer together as Jehan's hands scrabbled for anything that would lend him any kind of a foothold—the front of Courfeyrac's sweater, the angular jut of Courfeyrac's hip.

“Courfeyrac,” Jehan said, and Courfeyrac hummed against him, ran his teeth over the column of Jehan's throat. Jehan laughed, and Courfeyrac looked up.

“What is it?” he said. 

“You really want to do this?” Jehan said. “Now?”

Because it had been months, hadn't it, over a year since they'd kissed that first time and longer since they'd met. It was strange that Courfeyrac had waited this long and wanted to go all out now. Courfeyrac seemed to realize it, too, because he let go of Jehan's hair and back immediately. 

“You're right,” Courfeyrac said. “Maybe not the best timing.”

And they'd gone back to drinking and doing homework, and Jehan couldn't not be aware of Courfeyrac sitting just next to him twirling a pencil in one hand, the heat from his body radiating toward Jehan. But they'd stopped.

There was the time, too, just a few weeks ago, when they'd been stoned in Jehan's studio. Courfeyrac had been modeling for Jehan, half-naked, every now and then looking up at Jehan with that oddly charged expression, his mouth strangely tense. 

“Can you unlock your jaw?” Jehan asked him, and Courfeyrac actually stood up at that like he was going to do something about it.

“Only if you do it for me,” he said, and it should've sounded ridiculous but it didn't. Courfeyrac loved his stupid turns of phrase, the dumb flirty remarks that made up half his lexicon—but somehow the tone was off this time. 

He reached over Jehan's easel with one large hand and ran a thumb from Jehan's earlobe down to the center of his chin. When Jehan didn't say anything, Courfeyrac pressed his thumb against Jehan's lips, a brief pressure and a rush of heat that Jehan would've responded to immediately had a drunken Grantaire not stumbled in immediately after.

It didn't make any sense.

“What are we doing?” Jehan asked Courfeyrac once his freshman year, when they were leaving an off-Broadway production of the _Bacchae_. 

“I don't know,” Courfeyrac admitted, his arm so low around Jehan's waist that his fingertips brushed Jehan's hipbone, a touch that meant Jehan grew more bothered with every step. “This really isn't my area of expertise.”

“That's not what I would've guessed,” Jehan said.

“Then you would've guessed wrong.”

Courfeyrac let Jehan lead him to a cafe Jehan liked, one of the only places in Midtown he could tolerate. He was still new enough to New York that he felt a certain sense of wonder whenever he found new places to go, but he wasn't new enough that he had any such feelings about Midtown. Midtown was gross, a tourist haven, good only for seeing shows and even then only good if it wasn't a weekend. But this cafe was all right, small and surprising, situated above a cell phone case store that Jehan was pretty sure he'd nearly been pickpocketed in front of at least once.

They drank their coffees in amicable silence, Jehan looking through his copy of the _Bacchae_ and occasionally pointing out the bits he wished they'd included “but I get that it's kind of difficult to translate that part to English—still, though, it's there for the _stage_ ,” and Courfeyrac knee-deep in Nietzsche and making little snorts of indignation every time he came upon an idea he thought was particularly ridiculous. It was hard not to watch the way he chewed on his lower lip when he read or the way he tapped his pencil incessantly against the rim of his mug.

It was nice, Jehan thought, and apparently Courfeyrac thought so too, because that was not the last time they saw a matinee and had a coffee date afterward. It was, however, one of the last times they discussed the oddness of their relationship.

*

The problem, Jehan thinks, swirling his mimosa, is there are almost always substances or other people involved. He himself is no stranger to taking various drugs to change his brain chemistry. He finds that they help him with his art but more importantly with his poetry, and so most of the time Jehan is some degree of stoned and sometimes he takes other things for other effects. But he finds that he is constantly irritated by the way people tend to interrupt them—Grantaire and Enjolras have done it once each, but there have been endless dates on Courfeyrac's end and endless personal neuroses on Jehan's.

The other problem is that timing is almost never in their favor. Courfeyrac is rarely single, and his moments of singleness often coincide with the weeks that Jehan spends locked up in his studio or walking along the high line alone. Courfeyrac likes to sleep around, which Jehan doesn't mind except that often Courfeyrac dates three or four people at once, and Jehan doesn't think it's wrong to not want to be one of three or four people that Courfeyrac dates. And it doesn't help that Courfeyrac is so sharp, can read people so well, that he knows exactly when it's time for Jehan to be left alone. 

“I just came to drop off food,” he'll say, showing up to Jehan's studio at ten p.m. with no warning. And then he will, he'll just leave a sandwich there and squeeze Jehan's shoulder or kiss him lightly on the mouth or say something like, “Not for the wide world,” and then leave. 

Or he'll send Jehan a text in the middle of the night, a quick, _how's it hanging? left or right? or dead center?_ and then not be offended when Jehan doesn't response for hours or at all or when he responds with something in ancient Greek (which Courfeyrac, clever as he is, will paste into Google Translate and come up with a suitable dick joke to make in return). 

Or he'll see that Jehan is reading Rilke and a few days later casually drop _Sonnets to Orpheus_ into conversation, grinning delightedly at Jehan's reaction.

Or he'll just—he just knows, he gets it, when Jehan is tired and wants to be alone or when he's lonely and doesn't. It doesn't matter that sometimes Courfeyrac is seeing someone else or that sometimes Jehan doesn't want to see anyone. Their connection is always there, and Jehan frequently worries that this strange thing between them will ruin it. 

“What are you thinking about?” Courfeyrac asks Jehan at brunch after the ABC performs an off-key rendition of “My Heart Will Go On” for Grantaire and Enjolras.

“Nothing—I mean, I'm just. I'm worrying.”

“About what?”

Jehan looks across at Grantaire. 

“Our friends,” he says, and can tell that Courfeyrac can tell he's lying. “You think Grantaire'll dance again this season?”

“He has dancer's feet,” Courfeyrac says, and smiles when Jehan laughs. “With nimble soles.”

“And I have a soul of lead,” Jehan says. 

“Why's that?”

“Why's what?”

“Why the soul of lead?”

“I don't—it's really nothing. Nothing we should talk about, anyway.”

“Bullshit,” Courfeyrac says. “What's that they say? Dreamers often lie?”

“I'm worrying, then,” Jehan says. “About—stuff that's not really a problem. Stuff that doesn't really matter, or if it matters, it's not actually going to be a bad thing. I don't think.”

“Fine,” Courfeyrac says. “ _Be_ mysterious if you want to.” He knocks his own mimosa glass against Jehan's. “Just stop _worrying_.”

It's brunch, and Courfeyrac, having at last given up veganism, has a plate full of bacon. His lips are shiny with grease, and though it should be disgusting Jehan finds himself oddly charmed.

“Maybe you're right,” he says. “Obsessing isn't good for anyone.”

“Just look at Narcissus,” Courfeyrac says, in a clearly half-thought-out reference that makes Jehan drop his fork.

It clatters loudly against his plate, but no one seems to notice: Grantaire, exhausted, eating with one hand while the other twists around Enjolras's right on top of the table; Enjolras, his broken leg elevated in the aisle; Combeferre, tired and smiling; Eponine, tired and drinking coffee, her hair still wet from her shower, curled half-into Courfeyrac; Feuilly tucked between Bahorel and Musichetta and laughing; Joly, Bossuet, and Musichetta sharing three separate meals and all well-into their second bloody marys; Marius and Cosette, still so in awe of one another that they hardly notice the rest of them.

“Everyone's coupled up,” Jehan says.

“Well, Feuilly's single,” Courfeyrac says. “And Bahorel and his girlfriend broke up again a few weeks ago, so he's single for now.”

“For now,” Jehan says. He traces the lines of Courfeyrac's hand on the table. No one is paying them any attention, and this makes Courfeyrac sigh a little wistfully and rest his head on Jehan's shoulder.

“Maybe we should just go for it,” Courfeyrac says. “This is the first time we've coincided. You're in a good place, I'm in a good place, the ABC's just had a wildly successful rally—there won't ever be a better time for us to try.”

“You make a lot of sense,” Jehan says, pressing his palm flat against Courfeyrac's. Courfeyrac's hand closes around his automatically, sending a rush of warmth from the tips of Jehan's fingers straight to the center of his chest. “Summer's coming. All our friends are couples or about to be. Might as well.”

“Might as well,” Courfeyrac repeats, turning so that his glistening lips are absurdly close to Jehan's own. “Exactly what everyone wants to hear from the person of their dreams.”

“Apologies,” Jehan says. “Would you prefer something a little more romantic?”

“Obviously.”

“Here we are, with our future before us, and I only want to spend it with my prince, my soul mate, my friend—unless you don't want to.”

“Is that from _Friends_?” Courfeyrac asks, grinning.

'”Obviously.”

Jehan kisses him. Courfeyrac goes completely still for a moment. He tastes, unsurprisingly, like bacon and mimosas, but also like something spicier. Nutmeg and cinnamon. Jehan swipes his tongue along Courfeyrac's lower lip, tasting more, and it's been well over a year since the last time they really kissed. Pecks on the mouth don't matter, and anyway Courfeyrac kisses nearly everyone that way, and he definitely doesn't kiss everyone _this_ way, gentle and slow but deep in the same breath, tongue probing only at the other parts of Jehan's lips, sending shivers up Jehan's spine—

“No offense,” Combeferre says. “But we _are_ still in public.”

Jehan breaks away from Courfeyrac and laughs. Around them, the previously otherwise-engaged ABC cheers and engages in a reprise of “My Heart Will Go On.”

“Finally, dude,” Combeferre says. “I thought I was going to have to lock you in a room together or something.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from _Hamlet_. “Constant as the Northern Star” is from _Julius Caesar_. “Friendship is a slow-ripening fruit” is from Aristotle's _Ethics_. So is “a soul dwelling in two bodies.” The Bronte quote is from _Jane Eyre_. “Our indiscretion never serves us well” is a play on a line from _Hamlet_. “Not for the wide world” is from _Much Ado About Nothing_. Courfeyrac and Jehan's conversation about dancers, dreamers, and worrying pretty heavily references _Romeo and Juliet_ , which is fitting because Courfeyrac you might remember is part of a Shakespearean theater troupe. I really missed the chance to make Grantaire and Enjolras fidget through a production of _Romeo and Juliet_ back in like November, didn't I.
> 
> Also, if you're wondering, the last chapter of _philia_ will be posted next Sunday.


End file.
